Students study the greatest writers and poets of history, and most of them sigh and groan through it and never come to have an appreciation for the fantastic minds celebrated before them. Shakespeare, Hemingway, Homer, Faulkner, Baudelaire. These are big names who all have something in common. Each is revered for his great mind and works of literature throughout history. Also, this is not where the list ends, but the commonalities would be the same if expanded with another hundred names which fit the bill of being considered a great writer and thinker. These commonalities are: 1) all are male, 2) all are white. Now, more than ever, has this come under fire and liberal enthusiasts are pushing to include writers considered just as important, but have somehow remained unknown, who haven’t received proper credit due to being a minority among a vast, closed-minded majority. This includes writers of all types of groups: black, women, Hispanic, Asian, middle eastern, and more. In colleges across America there are classes titled, “Black writers…” and “Influential Women Writers…” or “Modern Middle Eastern Literature. So while each minority sees an effort at finally receiving credit for their great artists, there is at least one minority completely left out, and never even thought of. This minority is Deaf culture. While there are deaf individuals who have made big splashes in the artistic world (Beethoven, for example, even though he began losing his hearing in his late twenties and gradually lost it throughout his entire life), it is hard, if not impossible, to find appreciation for the artistic minds in the Deaf communities who use their primary source of communication, sign language, as a way to portray feelings and emotions, much the same way a famous poet grabs the hearts of people everywhere with his words and images produced by those words. This paper, then, assumes the responsibility of giving credit to a man, Clayton Valli, for dedicating his life towards propitiating an appreciation for ASL poetry, and will also lightly discuss what ASL poetry is and what it consists of.
What is ASL poetry? To begin with, one should have at least a minor understanding of what signed poetry is and how it’s similar to oral poetry. When watching a poet give an oral presentation of their poem, the poet must recite the poem loud and clear, pronouncing each word with care. The poet’s use of voice is important as it gives meaning to the poem by utilizing a loud or soft voice, the speed of the words being read, by planting certain emphasis upon particular syllables, words, or phrases, and by altering the tone of voice to achieve the desired effect the poet had in mind when creating the poem. Signing poetry is much the same when targeting the underlying principles of poesy performance, but there are many differences as to how this effect is carried out (Greene 105).
Just as oral poetry expresses the thoughts and emotions of the poet, signed poetry aims to do much the same thing. The signer poet, just like the oral poet, needs to produce the desired tempo, tone, emphasis, and rhythm of the signs which make up the poem. In signed poetry, the signer will use facial expressions and body language to extend the visual images of the poem (Greene 105).
In poetry, many different devices of language are used by poets. One device, the art of rhyming, has been affluent since the days of Homer. In signed poetry, rhyming can be important as well. Just as words in poetry rhyme, certain signs in signed language have similar features, such as handshape, placement of the hands, direction of the signs, and facial expressions, which make signs “rhyme” (American). Another device signed poetry has in common with written/oral poetry is the metaphor. One unique device to ASL poetry, however, is the use of spatial medium. This is when a poem depicts a certain passage of time, whether it is hours, days, seasons, or years, and the poet controls the use of space to make clear this effect.
Signed poetry is a relatively new thing, at least as far as documentation is concerned. There are no published records of signed poetry before 1970 (American). One man, Clayton Valli, was concerned about this and strove to raise recognition and appreciation for this underrated, unheard of, virtually non-existent art form.
Valli was born in 1951. Although suffering from this hardship, he went on to get a Ph.D. in Linguistics and ASL Poetics from the Union Institute in Cincinnati in 1993. This would be the first ASL Poetics doctorate ever given out to anyone. Valli traveled around the country giving presentations and workshops to promote an appreciation for ASL poetry. He even became internationally famous for his own poetry and for the beauty it entailed (Clayton). But spreading appreciation for signed poetry wasn’t an easy task, and not only because of a lack of disinterest from the hearing community.
The Deaf community was hesitant to embrace such an art form using signed language. It was believed, by many members of the Deaf community, that this ASL poetry Valli was trying to introduce was just a simple translation from English poetry, similar to music, only in the form of signing. One factor contributing to this notion was that the sign for “poetry” itself was very similar to that of “music”. Since this caused resistance among the Deaf community, Valli decided he needed to do something if he was ever going to bring ASL poetry to them. Instead of signing “poetry”, Valli began finger spelling the word “poet” in reference to ASL poetry. Since Valli’s ingenious signed invention, a new sign has emerged, thus more clearly distinguishing between the two types of poetry: English and ASL (American).
Clayton Valli died on March 7, 2003 (Clayton). It’s hard to tell whether or not Valli’s dream of spreading ASL poetry to the signing community was a success. Although ASL has become much more popular throughout America, there are still only a handful of people who consider themselves, and are considered by others, to be true ASL poets. Creative signers can be found anywhere, and it may even be said that any signer with his or her own style and uniqueness could be considered a creative signer. The actual art of ASL poetry, however, is still somewhat of a rarity and gains recognition only among the few members it is passed down to, like an oral tradition in Ancient Greece.
Works Cited
“American Sign Language Poetry.” 1998. Georgetown University. 04 Mar. 2007 .
“Clayton Valli.” Wikipedia. 11 June 2006. 5 Mar. 2007 .
Greene, Laura, and Eva B. Dicker. Washington D.C.: Kendall Green Publications, 1989. 104-110.
